Yet another conversor board for generic 16×2 line displays to I2C

If you are trying to convert your 16×2 display to I²C, you’ve probably googled and found many resources on the Internet. But if you happen to have a MGD1602B series LCD module, this may be your lucky day, because I’ve already designed a board in Eagle Cad for this purpose. Keep reading and download converter schematic and board. All for free, as (almost) always. Bonus: Eagle Cad library (.lbr) for this LCD module.

First of all, please note that I didn’t invent anything new except for the board itself that was designed for this specific LCD module.

The circuit was stolen from Mario_H’s page. In this page you will also find an Arduino library to drive the LCD via I²C.

MGD1602B Series LCD module

This generic 16×2 module has the following pinout. Please always verify if your LCD match this one, there are a lot of line displays out there from different manufacturers and specs totally different.

The + and – are pins 15 and 16 respectively.

In this peculiar LCD pins 15 and 16 are not following the linear order of the rest of the pins from 1 to 14!

And here is the MGD1602B-NS(W)-BBS BACK AZUL Datasheet, just in case.

Converter board

Arduino Duemilanove connection

SDA (inner board pin, not being 5v) -> A4

SCL (outer board pin, not being ground) -> A5

Testing code (using LiquidCrystal_I2C library)

Note that the address is 0x38 (all 3 address pins grounded).

#include <Wire.h>
#include <LiquidCrystal_I2C.h>

LiquidCrystal_I2C lcd(0x38, 16, 2);  // set the LCD address to 0x20 for a 16 chars and 2 line display

void setup()
{
  lcd.init();                      // initialize the lcd
  // Print a message to the LCD.
  lcd.backlight();
  lcd.print("Hello, world!");
}

void loop()
{
}

Download converter schematic, board and LCD eagle library

lcd-i2c on GitHub

Good luck!